NASA’s James Webb Telescope captures first evidence of carbon dioxide on an exoplanet WASP-39b

According to NASA, the exoplanet WASP-39b is a hot gas giant orbiting a Sun-like star about 700 light-years from Earth and part of a larger network realization that includes two transiting planets. The agency noted that understanding the composition of the atmospheres of planets such as WASP-39b is critical to understanding their origin and how they formed. press release.

“CO2 molecules are sensitive snippets of the planetary formation story,” said Mike Lane, associate professor at Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, in a press release. Lane is a member of JWST’s Early Release Science Team Transiting Exoplanets, which conducted the investigation.

To monitor the atmosphere of WASP-39b, the team made observations of carbon dioxide using the telescope’s near-infrared spectrometer — one of Webb’s four science instruments. Their research is part of the Science Early Launch Program, which is designed to quickly provide data from the telescope to the exoplanet research community, guiding scientific exploration and discovery.

This latest discovery has been accepted for publication in the journal Nature.

“By measuring this carbon dioxide feature, we can determine the amount of solid versus the amount of gaseous material used to make this gas giant planet,” Lin added. “Over the next decade, JWST will perform this measurement of a variety of planets, providing insight into how planets formed and the properties of our solar system.”

A new era in exoplanet research

hypersensitivity web telescope It was launched on Christmas Day 2021 into its current orbit, 1.5 million kilometers (approximately 932,000 miles) from Earth. By observing the universe at longer wavelengths of light than using other space telescopes, Webb can examine the dawn of time more closely, looking for patterns that were overlooked in the first galaxies, and looking at the dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are now forming.

In the spectrum captured from the planet’s atmosphere, the researchers found a small peak between 4.1 and 4.6 microns – “a clear signal of carbon dioxide,” said team leader Natalie Batalha, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Fe. . Cruz, in Publishing. (A micron is a unit of length equal to one millionth of a meter).

“Depending on the composition, thickness and cloudiness of the atmosphere, it absorbs certain colors of light more than others – making the planet appear larger,” team member Menzah Alam told Science. “We can analyze these tiny differences in planet size to reveal the chemical composition of the atmosphere.”

Reaching this part of the light spectrum – which the Webb telescope makes possible – is crucial to measuring abundant gases like methane and water, as well as carbon dioxide, according to NASA. Because individual gases absorb different color combinations, researchers can “examine small differences in the brightness of light scattered across the wavelength spectrum, accurately identifying the components of the atmosphere,” according to NASA.

Earlier, NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer telescopes detected water vapor, sodium and potassium in the planet’s atmosphere. “Previous observations of the planet by Hubble and Spitzer have given us tantalizing hints that carbon dioxide may be present,” Batalha said. “JWST data showed a clear advantage of CO2 that practically screamed at us.”

Morton K. from the Johns Hopkins University Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. “As soon as the data appeared on my screen, the huge CO2 feature caught my eye,” Zafar Rustamkulov, a graduate student in the Blostein Department, said in a press release. Editing added: “This is a special moment, crossing an important threshold in exoplanet science.”

Discovered in 2011, WASP-39b has a mass about a quarter the mass of Saturn and Jupiter, while its diameter is 1.3 times that of Jupiter. Because the exoplanet orbits close to its star, it completes one revolution in less than four days on Earth.